As previously announced, the Wii Shop Channel will close for good on January 30, 2019. The ability to add Wii Points was removed earlier this year, but if you still have any Wii Points that you wish to spend, you must do so before January 30, 2019.

If you have any questions, please see our Q&A.

Please also note that as the Wii Shop Channel closure date approaches, remaining video-on-demand services on Wii will be ending as well.

Thank you for supporting Wii Shop Channel and for being such great fans of Nintendo.

Between the Wii Shop launch day and probably a year or so before Wii U, I ended up purchasing 50 Virtual Console games and 10 WiiWare games. I hated the slow drip feed of Wii Virtual Console, but I appreciate it for letting me play some of my old favorites and introducing me to games that I missed (like Gunstar Heroes or Super Turrican).

What happens is the same thing that happens to your VHS cassettes when your VCR breaks--you accept that technology both moves forward and breaks down and that you'll lose access to everything eventually. By the time anything like that happens you'll not only have had two decades or more to play those games, but you'll have all the games you've been buying for those decades to play instead. It's unfortunate, but it's also reality, and not a tragedy.

Good questions. The bottom line is that, with Nintendo's policies, you will likely someday lose access to all of the digital games you bought from them. I find it ridiculous for that to be the case however.

With physical media, it is understandable that you may someday lose access to what you have purchased. Think about music. Physical media like vinyl records, cassette tapes, and cds can wear out, break, and get lost or stolen. But when you buy digital music, it is never going to wear out, break, or get lost or stolen. Even if the company you bought the music from goes out of business, you can download the files and back them up to as many devices and cloud services as you want. You buy it and have it to enjoy for the rest of your life.

The nature of digital solves the problem of losing access to what you have purchased. That is unless you implement awful anti consumer policies that ensure people will someday lose access to their purchases like Nintendo has done. There are alternatives. Sites like GOG and many others offer tons of games DRM free. I can't stand to buy a digital game from Nintendo anymore because I feel like such a sucker doing it.

Even after Jan 30, 2019 you can still download the games you purchased according to the Q and A. They are going to shut that down at a later time which has not been announced yet.

Nintendo's awful digital game policies actually drove me to computer gaming. Now I buy digital games that have a great policy for the consumer. DRM free, versions for PC, Mac, and Linux. There are many games that support that, and it is so great, it's hard to beat. I already regret just about every digital game purchased with Nintendo.